Re: Limits of technology

Alan Brain wrote:

> >>Somehow I don't see a US-Australian war in my lifetime.
> >
> >Do you seriously believe that Australia is the only country which has
this
> >type of artillery-delivered jamming capability? If so, think again.
There
> >are several other countries who have it too... including some which I
could
> >see the US fight in our lifetime, and some which would sell this
technology
> >to countries the US appearently plan to fight in near-time.
>
>(cough)France(cough).

Them too, yes. I was thinking more of Russia and Ukraine though... 
especially Ukraine, after their recent SAM sales to a certain 
middle-eastern state :-/

>One problem that the USA suffers is the NIH syndrome: if the USA
doesn't have
>it / hasn't thought of it / can't build it then it doesn't exist. I
might 
>add that
>this problem is not confined to the USA.

That's very true, yes.

Another side of the "NIH" syndrom is the "Must Have Been Invented Here" 
syndrom, ie. if a technical gadget is good, Americans have a tendency to

believe that it is American-built even when it is imported. So far I've 
encountered it twice: once when a Mid-western family bragged about their

new "American-built" fridge (brand name Electrolux...), not quite
believing 
that we had such things in Sweden. It took them quite a long time to 
realise that Electrolux is in fact a Swedish company, but when they saw
the 
"Made in Sweden" mark in the handbook they folded :-/

The second time was some years back when US officers visited a Swedish 
mechanised unit up in Boden and saw the vast quantities of AT4s and Carl

Gustaf RCLs, whereupon they commented "Oh, so you're buying anti-tank 
weapons from us!" Of course we do buy weapons from the US - TOWs, 
Sidewinders etc. - but not these specific weapons which caused their 
comments <g>

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry